


Werewolf Re-Education

by DarkAkumaHunter



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Parallel Universes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-02
Updated: 2015-07-02
Packaged: 2018-04-07 06:06:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4252230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkAkumaHunter/pseuds/DarkAkumaHunter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or: So, Werewolves are a thing now?</p>
<p>In which Stiles Stilinski’s introduction to werewolves involves a helluva lot of lost time, and some unfamiliar faces.</p>
<p>(A What-if in which <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/3700433">Running with Wolves</a> involves parallel dimensions, not time-travel, and the original Stiles switches places with parallel Stiles)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Werewolf Re-Education

**Author's Note:**

> Look at me, starting another fic, bad bad girl. 
> 
> This is being delegated to super-side-project because I'm kind of using it to shake off some of the slightly goofier things I've briefly considered for Running with Wolves that I think would sort of ruin it. That's not to say that it isn't going to be a story in it's own right. Because it is. Just not as long, or impressive. And probably rambly.
> 
> Anyway, you can hit me up on [tumblr](http://lyrium-melodies.tumblr.com/) about any other side-spiels you feel like, or just to chat, or whatever

Stiles groaned.

His everything ached. There was a pounding in his head, and he couldn’t remember what he’d been doing before apparently blacking out.

The stuff beneath his fingers felt not-at-all like carpet, and rather more like twigs and dirt and all that outdoorsy stuff which, memory or no, seemed like a really weird place to pass out. Stiles didn’t exactly spend copious amounts of time in forested areas – he was more of a school, lacrosse, home again sort of guy – and he definitely wouldn’t go creeping about a forest if he felt ill enough to collapse.

Which, of course, begged the question: why was he outside? What was he doing? And who did all those voices whispering around his head belong to?

The last question would no doubt be the easiest to answer, so Stiles hesitantly opened his eyes. It hurt, but more as residual pain from his headache and less because his eyes were sore. It was pretty dark out, actually. Another point on the weirdness scale. And almost immediately after his vision cleared, it was filled with looming faces, all a little blurry and none seeming particularly welcoming.

Most of them backed off a little when Stiles did nothing but blink up at them. Which was good. He needed breathing room. And lying down was making him feel ridiculously vulnerable. So he dragged his hands along the dirt, bending his elbows and making to push himself up off the ground but oh, ouch, his left wrist pretty much caved under the pressure. Definitely a sprain, maybe even broken. Wonderful. Injured, in the woods, at night, with a bunch of strangers. Only… Stiles squinted.

“Scott?”

One of the figures pushed forward, kneeling beside him until Scott McCall’s face filled his vision. Well, Stiles thought it was Scott. He didn’t look quite right. It was hard to pinpoint how, exactly, in the semi-dark of the forest, but he was definitely different. Or maybe it was the sort of confused feeling you get when you see someone for the first time in a really long time, and you can’t remember if that’s how they always looked. Except Stiles was 95% sure that he’d seen Scott only a short while ago.

Then there was a hand on his wrist and the ache in his body faded away and hell, did someone just drug him?

“Scott, what’s happening?” Stiles asked, staring up at his (probably) friend as though he held the answers to all the world’s secrets. And as far as Stiles was concerned, he did – that is, if they had been out together and Scott hadn’t just found him passed out in the forest with this group of strangers.

Scott frowned a little, eyebrows pinching together and lips curling down at the edges. He glanced up, making strange silent eye contact with some of the other members of the odd group, before refocusing on Stiles.

“Stiles, the Void caught you with some sort of energy blast. I don’t think it hurt you, but you’ve been unconscious for nearly ten minutes. We had no idea what was happening or if it was safe to move you.”

None of that made any sense to Stiles, unless he was actually really high and none of this was real, in which case he was going to berate himself for whatever weird thing had happened to get him to this point in the first place.

“The Void?” He asked, instead of voicing his inner monologue, one eyebrow raised in mocking question.

“You know… the Void.”

“The void as in, I dunno…” Stiles waved his other hand in the air lazily, “the Universe? Space?”

“No, Stiles, the Void, remember?” Scott gestured helplessly with the hand that wasn’t on his wrist, a desperate look overtaking his features as he looked away again. “Derek, Derek he doesn’t remember, what do we do?”

Another figure loomed over him, responding to Scott’s cries. Stiles frowned, staring up at the new face and mulling the name over and over in his head. Derek… Derek… They didn’t know anyone called Derek… He wasn’t sure if-

“Derek Hale!”

An expectant eyebrow raise told Stiles he’d made his grand discovery out loud, but whatever. There were more important things to worry about. Like when Scott had become friends with Derek Hale, and why they were in the woods, and what the hell Scott was on about blabbering about the void.

The pain in his head was gone, but now his thoughts were in overdrive. He could remember now, some of it. A body in the woods, his dad had been heading out to investigate. Stiles had been planning on grabbing Scott and checking it out, but something told him that wasn’t why he was out here.

Without warning, Derek tugged him somewhat violently to his feet. The aches came rushing back when Scott’s hand slipped off his arm. It was jarring, but it helped bring the rest of his mind into clarity. Looking around him, Stiles realised that the group wasn’t so unfamiliar after all.

Not all of them, anyway.

Despite everything in him pointing out all the things that were wrong with what he was seeing, there was no denying it. Lydia Martin, the prettiest girl in Beacon Hills (in Stiles’ opinion anyway), was in the woods, staring at him with lips drawn into a tight, unhappy line. Stiles kind of didn’t care who the others were anymore – this was a mystery he needed to get to the bottom of. What was Lydia doing running around at night with this weird lot?

“Queen Lydia, getting her boots dirty in the woods? This is new.”

Lydia glared at him, calculating and shrewd. Stiles was taken aback by it, just a bit. He was used to her ignoring him entirely, rather than this. She turned away from him, looking to Scott and to Derek.

“Usually I would suggest taking him to Scott’s mom, but this feels off.” She tilted her head, as though listening to something no one else could hear. “He doesn’t feel right. It’s not a… a death feeling. I don’t know what it is. Perhaps Deaton can help.”

“You’re right.”

Scott again.

Stiles had no freaking idea what was happening anymore. This was weird and unbelievable on so many levels that he didn’t even know where to start. It seemed safest to just stay silent and watch.

“He smells different. Like before the, uh, Incident.”

Lydia went completely white, nails digging into her arms where they were crossed over her chest. One of the others growled lowly, and the rest shifted uncomfortably. Whatever this incident was – and Scott had said it in that ‘incident with a capital I’ sort of way – Stiles could assume it was something scarring. Except he had no idea what it was, and apparently it had involved him. Also-

“Deaton? Scott’s boss? The vet? Why are you taking me to the vet? Can I veto that? Hospital please. Or, better yet, home, before my dad gets back and realises I snuck out.”

His ankle ached, but Stiles would rather walk all the way home than deal with this weirdness. (Which made him wonder where his jeep was.) Maybe tomorrow, after a decent sleep, he’d wade through this in the light of day. Right now he just wanted out.

He was gathering himself to turn and march off in what was hopefully the direction of the road when a hand clamped down on his shoulder. Stiles groaned – why was it always him? The last thing he saw was Scott’s apologetic frown as his vision wavered and he felt his legs collapse beneath him.

**oOoOo**

When Stiles came to this time, he was lying on cold metal.

His first thought upon realising that was exasperation, because _of course_ they’d ignored his express wishes to either go home or to the hospital. His second was anger. Too many things were going on for him to follow, and no one was giving him any sort of heads up before throwing him around like a ragdoll.

Stiles sat up slowly, taking in the examination room. His crowd of maybe-acquaintances were gone, for the time being, and he breathed a sigh of relief at that. He was finally alone.

“Good evening Stiles.”

Except he wasn’t.

Stiles jumped slightly at the voice, twisting to the side to find who had spoken. He eyed the man warily, more than a little miffed that it meant Scott had been serious about taking him to the vet.

“Doctor Deaton.”

“Well, I’m pleased you seem to know who I am, at any rate.” Deaton smiled a small, empty smile as he spoke, gaze assessing Stiles all the while. Stiles was of half a mind to just leave, but he wanted answers.

“Sure, you’re Scott’s boss. Though I didn’t think you were so close that you’d let him use your place as a make-shift hospital.”

Stiles scooted back on the examination table, bringing his legs up and shifting to sit cross-legged, facing Deaton.

“Yes, well, I fear a lot of things have changed since you and I last crossed paths.”

Stiles frowned. Deaton waved off his confusion.

“Your friends are in the waiting room. I attempted to send them off home, which I feel would have been for the best, but most of them insisted on remaining. They will no doubt want to speak with you. May I suggest you listen to them with an open mind?”

“An open mind? Why?” Stiles asked suspiciously.

Deaton just smiled that suspicious smile again and left the room.

Stiles knew there was a back door to the clinic. If he made it outside before Deaton told the others he was awake…

His still-forming plans were immediately shattered when Scott bounded through the door.

“What the hell is a Void?” He asked, brushing off Scott’s cautious greeting, and ignoring the slow flow of unknown people trickling into the room behind his friend.

“Well, we don’t know exactly. You named it, said you thought it was funny, and we needed to stop calling it ‘the creature’ just because we hadn’t been able to find it in the bestiary. Don’t you remember?”

Stiles rolled his eyes.

“No, I still don’t remember whatever it is you think I should know. Also, who are they?” He gestured with his good hand to the small grouping of unfamiliar teens across the room. “And why is Lydia here? Not that I’m complaining.”

Lydia actually appeared shaken by his line of questioning, which was more jarring than her mere presence. It wasn’t that Stiles thought she was a bad person – he was in love with her after all – it was just, she’d never really paid him any attention up until this point, and all this concern and confusion, well, it certainly wasn’t helping him pull together any hints as to what was going on.

Scott seemed pretty much lost for words, and Derek, the only other vaguely familiar member of their little group, was potentially brooding, all dark and silent. In the end it was Lydia who faced up to his questions.

“I think perhaps we should be asking the questions, Stiles.” When he didn’t protest, she took a deep breath and continued. “What’s the last thing you remember, before waking up in the forest?”

“I was at home,” Stiles said slowly, checking to make sure the details were right. “My dad had been called out to a scene, something about a body being discovered in the woods. I was going to tell Scott about it, maybe drag him along to go check it out. And then I was _in_ the woods, but I have no idea how I got there, and you lot were all staring at me. How is this supposed to help?”

When he looked away from Lydia Stiles’ gaze latched onto Scott. Scott, who was as pale as death, who looked, rather alarmingly, as though his whole world had just fallen to pieces. Regardless of his current disorientation, he wasn’t about to let that stand.

Stiles shimmied off the table and walked over to his best friend, a little more hesitantly than he cared to admit.

“Scott, what’s wrong?”

“Stiles… That was over a year ago.”

Stiles froze, and snapped back automatically. “Bullshit.”

“Call it what you want, Stiles, but it’s the truth.”

“No, Lydia, come on, that’s not funny. What are you trying to say? That I’ve forgotten an entire year of my life? No deal, I’m not buying it.”

One of the others, a petite Asian girl Stiles had never seen before in his life, stepped cautiously forward. She rested a hand on Scott’s shoulder and Stiles took several involuntary steps back.

“Scott, you said he smells different now? That sort of possession, it becomes an integral part of who you are as a person. It wasn’t only in memories that it lingered. If you say it’s gone now, then, just maybe, this isn’t the same Stiles.”

Stiles stared, mind racing and unable to form words. His heart beat fast in his chest. This _wasn’t making sense!_ Scents and possession and bestiaries, memory loss, _not the same Stiles._ He wanted to close his eyes, and be at home in bed when he opened them, but since when had life been that great to him?

“If this is a prank,” Stiles said weakly, forcing the words out, “then someone please yell surprise right now so I can go home. Because I am so not prepared for whatever this is.”

“Oh, trust me,” the unfamiliar boy spoke up, “I wish this was a prank. Then I could go home and pretend none of this was happening.”

Lydia snapped at him. “Not helping, Liam.”

“What’s the better assumption to make?” Scott asked the room, somewhat desperately.

“Does it matter?” Derek pointed out from the corner. “Either way, he doesn’t know. So just tell him.”

Stiles wasn’t sure he could handle any more surprises tonight, or this week even, but he surged forward regardless.

“Tell me what?”

Scott groaned. Stiles was beginning to fell rather unwanted, as though he was intruding on something, but they were the ones that wouldn’t leave _him_ alone.

“Oh, get a grip McCall,” Lydia huffed. “This is going to sound unbelievable, so I’m just going to say it. Your best friend is a werewolf. Werewolves are real. Werecoyotes are, apparently, a thing. And so are half the other fantasy creatures you read about in books.” She frowned at the back of Scott’s head. “There, was that so hard?”

Stiles laughed, desperately and with a touch of hysteria.

How was this his life?


End file.
